


(and I control you)

by kusege



Series: Mr. Self Destruct [1]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: AU where Maxwell using the Codex Umbra makes him less human, Blood and Injury, Gen, Magic, Maxwell is an idiot who doesn’t know how to notice anything, Oblivious Maxwell, This might become a series at some point, Transformation, indications of minor gaslighting, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 15:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19153864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kusege/pseuds/kusege
Summary: Using magic isn’t harmless, and everything comes at its cost. A young William Carter ignores this.(Title from Mr. Self Destruct by Mindless Self Indulgence.)





	(and I control you)

The study had been made purposefully dim, curtains drawn tight over the windows. No light penetrated through them, not even at the edges, and though the air was perfectly still, the curtains swayed back and forth, as if tied to a skittering mouse that could not be seen. The papers on the desk moved, too- ruffled up as if blown upon or run past. The lid of the cigar box on the desk rose and fell, the books stacked high in a corner for want of a bookcase shivered, and the small fireplace built into a wall found its ashes swirling and threatening to spill out. Indeed, the only perfectly still thing within the room- aside from the air- was the single lightbulb on the ceiling. 

But this unusual feat of physics did not trouble the room’s single inhabitant. In fact, William Carter took notes upon the papers on his desk as if nothing was wrong, like he didn’t even notice that it seemed a ghost was trying to use them as a flipbook. Instead, he simply reached out to hold the most recent page down and copied whatever he needed from his book, before releasing it and letting it be whipped in the nonexistent wind like all the others. 

For all intents and purposes, the room, if it could be viewed from without, would appear to be in the midst of a gentle and intermittent hurricane, and William would seem to be in the eye of it. But as it was, the door was firmly locked, and though the curtains ruffled and swayed, they never uncovered the window. If one had put their ear to the door, they would have heard nothing to indicate the oddity within.

However, if one was to disregard the invisible war on the contents of the room, things would seem almost hideously mundane. William Carter sat at his desk. He was reading a book, and every few pages, he would hum or mutter to himself, take a few notes on a sheet of paper, and return to his reading. He chewed at his lip absently. It would have been devastatingly dull to watch- unless one looked very closely.

As he read, William Carter’s mind ran wild. So many intriguing, fascinating, powerful things he could do now! This went beyond simple parlor tricks and misdirection, this was true magic. Magic even he couldn’t explain, and what he was already using it for was proving to be well worth it. People lost their minds over this kind of thing, he found, and while he had been accused of being a devil-worshipper by the rogue attendee, he mostly received praise and awe from his audience. Oh, and money, of course.

He smiled briefly, and flipped the page, to a nearly imperceptible puff of black smoke; shadows that lay on the page to mimic ink slipping through the small gap between pages to wipe things clean. The only things that remained from these sessions were William’s notes, allowing his book to contain far more information than it should have. He took no notice of the smoke, both because he did not care and because he did not see it. Instead, his eyes were already devouring the next page, attention focused far more on the forbidden knowledge before him than anything else happening around him. William could have been set on fire, or set upon by wild dogs, or bitten by a spider that was bigger than his head, and he would likely have noticed nothing. 

However, as he read, he noticed something unusual- the taste of blood in his mouth. Curious, he flicked out his tongue- ah, yes, there was the injury. A small cut on his lower lip. It stung like all hell, and ran deeper than he thought it should have, another lick finding that he could force the tip of his tongue far within the cut.  

An injury unusual in its severity, to be certain, but William Carter brushed it off. He must have been chewing his lip too hard, he thought, hand absently raising to hold down one of the many letters he needed to answer to as another unseen and unfelt gust threatened to send them to the other half of the study. Just a minor oddity. He decided to bite the other side of his lip for now.

He looked up at the sound of a doorknob being turned, and closed the book. In a flash of darkness, like a blink, shadows flew as fast as light back within its pages. For one second, William was surrounded by them, and his lip shot through with pain. The curtains fell limp and still. The cigar box opened for the last time, before closing with a loud  _ snap _ . The papers settled into a slightly messier pile than they’d originally been in, although the difference would go unnoticed. As the pain of the sudden bite registered, he stood in shock, book dropping to the desk loudly as he cursed.

“Maxwell? Are you alright?”

The intruder- Charlie- looked at him, eyes wide and face pale. He did not have to wonder why, he could feel the blood running down his chin now. He swore, and rose a gloved hand to stem the flow of it. It would stain, but gloves could be replaced. If the blood reached anything else, well… that would be harder to wipe away.

“I’m fine,” he growled, voice marred by his hand. “Please leave me be for a moment, if you would?” 

She frowned, looking at his current state, before nodding and closing the door. He sighed and pulled out a handkerchief, pressing it to his lip. Hot blood oozed around his fingers and the pressure stung, but he persisted. After a minute, he waved his hand, and with a dark swirl of shadow, a reflective surface- too dark to be a true mirror, but it serviced as such- hovered before him in the air. 

He grabbed his bottom lip where it was not bitten open, wiped it clean, and stretched it out. The polished blackness reflected a small cut on the left side and a massive, lip-splitting gash taking up the majority of the right half of his lip. This one was far deeper than the other, too- he could take the two halves of his lip and peel them apart from each other. 

William grumbled to himself- that would take ages to heal, and might even scar. But there was nothing he could do for it now. His handkerchief would just have to manage the bloodflow until it scabbed over. Unless…

His eyes turned back to his book, laying docile on the desk. Surely, since so many other things seemed to be possible… surely healing wasn’t out of his reach? 

With one hand still holding the handkerchief, the other opened the front cover of the book. He knew by now that its contents were never consistent or repeated- hence his note taking. Due to that, it really didn’t matter where he looked for his answers, but there was something so wild about just turning to a random page. He preferred things to be ordered and neat, just like himself.

William’s fingers flipped through the pages quickly, careful not to look too close lest some incredible knowledge be lost to him forever in his rush for a quick fix. Some diagrams of unusual machines, creatures he’d never seen before and could hardly imagine, countless other bizarre and unearthly things were revealed and ignored, before finally, a page dense in text appeared. He nearly skipped it, before seeing its header, lines thick and serpentine. 

“The Healing of Minor Wounds at Minor Cost to The Healer.”

A rather redundant title, obviously- but also exactly what he was looking for. He set a hand onto the pages, to ensure none of the knowledge was lost, and quickly scanned the page. Sentence fragments hovered in his mind, phrases in languages he did not recognize, yet understood; and halfway down the page, the relevant incantation.

Tongue unsteady and slimy with blood, he recited it as best he could. His throat felt heavy, swollen with the words he spoke. He only barely managed to choke out the final phrase. The world seemed to swirl for a moment. Dark shadows crowded his face and mouth and it seemed that he could not breathe or blink or move a muscle, and there was the peculiar feeling of  _ nothing _ touching his lip and forcing it back together, and- and it was over.

William placed his bloody handkerchief onto the desk and touched his lip. It was healed, all of it, not even a scar visible in his mirror of shadows. He smiled, licking off the last traces of blood from his chin. With a flick of his hand, the mirror disbanded, and he quickly noted down the incantation before letting the book close again. He sighed, and straightened up- and paused. Had he seen something in the mirror? Was it his imagination?

Or were his teeth sharper than they had used to be?

He ran his tongue over his teeth experimentally. They did seem to be more painful- but that was likely just that his tongue was sensitive after the ordeal it had experienced mere minutes ago. Besides, what healing spell had  _ teeth sharpening  _ as a side effect?

He laughed at his own folly, and smoothed back his hair. Now he only had to convince Charlie that she saw nothing, and everything would be back to normal. And if he found himself with a bleeding lip more days than not after the incident… it was just an increase in nerves. Nothing out of the ordinary. And certainly not the result of anything he’d done.


End file.
